Hamas terrorists invaded the Abu Rashid food distribution point in Jabalia on Saturday and assaulted two drivers who were delivering humanitarian supplies, according to the United Nations. The warehouse was operated by the World Food Programme. The people meant to receive aid got a reminder, instead, that armed authorities still decide who eats, who waits, and who gets shoved around at the gate.
Aid Under Armed Control
United Nations Deputy Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Dr. Ramiz Alakbarov complained on Sunday that “de facto authorities” invaded and assaulted staff at the site, while notably failing to name Hamas in his statement. He said he “strongly” condemned the incident and cited a “dangerous pattern of intimidation, violence and obstruction, including smuggling attempts, targeting and abusing humanitarian operations” by the “de facto authorities.” The wording is careful. The violence is not.
Alakbarov also said Israel’s expansive control of the territory was a major threat to humanitarian supplies in the Palestinian territory. He wrote, “The expansion of areas under Israeli control is further reducing the space available to civilians, making it imperative that humanitarian assistance is able to move safely and reach people in need without interference.” That’s the state monopoly on movement, reduced to a sentence about “space available to civilians.”
He added, “Under international humanitarian law, all parties must respect and protect humanitarian personnel, facilities and relief supplies, and refrain from actions that obstruct humanitarian operations...” He also said, “The people of Gaza have already endured immense suffering. They cannot be subjected to further delays or disruptions in the delivery of life-saving assistance. I reiterate that humanitarian organizations must be able to carry out their work safely, independently, impartially and without fear of intimidation or violence.” The language sounds neutral. The reality described in the same statement is a territory where armed power keeps interfering with survival itself.
The NGO Mirage
The warehouse was operated by the World Food Programme, one of the international aid bodies that is supposed to move food through the wreckage without becoming part of the machinery that blocks it. Yet the article’s own facts show how fragile that promise is when armed groups and territorial control decide the terms. Humanitarian work gets reduced to a corridor policed by competing authorities, each claiming legitimacy while ordinary people stand in the middle.
COGAT also condemned the incident, saying it was part of a pattern of intimidation employed by the terror group. COGAT wrote, “This constitutes further clear evidence that Hamas cynically exploits the humanitarian space and the aid intended for the residents of the Gaza Strip for its own purposes.” It added, “The facts are clear: humanitarian aid is entering the Gaza Strip. Hamas is the party undermining the distribution mechanisms, seizing humanitarian aid, and preventing it from reaching the civilian population.”
Two Authorities, One Choke Point
The statements from the United Nations and COGAT point in the same direction even as they blame different culprits: armed authority controls the flow of aid, and civilians pay for it. Hamas, the “de facto authorities” in the UN’s phrasing, is accused of invading a food distribution point and assaulting drivers. Israel, through expansive control of the territory, is described as shrinking the space available to civilians and interfering with humanitarian movement. Different uniforms. Same choke point.
The result is not a humanitarian system operating above politics. It’s a humanitarian system trapped inside them. Relief supplies, personnel, warehouses, and drivers all sit inside a structure where armed groups and state institutions decide access, movement, and delivery. The people in Jabalia don’t get a clean separation between governance and coercion. They get both, at once, and neither seems interested in stepping aside.